PZ - June 20th 2013

The Planning and Zoning Commission met in workshop session on Thurs, June 20, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. at the Mayfield Village Civic Center Conference Room for a meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Chairman Farmer presided.

Chairman Farmer called the meeting to order. This is a workshop meeting. We won’t be taking an official vote tonight. We have one agenda item.

Ted Esborn referring back to the outline discussed on April 18th states it was the items at the top of that document that seemed had the most consensus. It’s those that we tried to get at in the revised draft tonight of amendments.

Introduction to Zoning Code Amendments by David Hartt

David Hartt said based on the interpretation from the last meeting, we prepared a package with two types of amendments:

Amendment 1: Adding to the Main Buildings and Uses that are permitted in the O-L and P-D Districts and adding to the Special Permit Uses that are listed in the P/D District.

Amendment 2: Adding Unique Standards related to some of the Uses.

Those are the two fundamental amendments we drafted. The third change is doing some editing to the ‘Guidelines for Evaluating Special Permit Uses’; ATTACHMENT 2.

If you agree at the end of this meeting that we have to redevelop further, I give two options. One, they are not ready for adoption. This is a draft only. We’d have to refine/edit the language a little more. Secondly, if you are not adding any more amendments, be aware we have not gone through and scanned the rest of the code to make sure that what we’re doing here doesn’t create some inconsistencies with other parts of the code that might require amendments. If we have a general consensus we’re on the right track, we’ll come back for another workshop with the final draft and make a recommendation to Council.

We have two other attachments for information purposes:

ATTACHMENT 3: A list of All Uses that are Permitted “Main Uses” listed “Special Uses” or Special Uses that have been approved but are not explicitly listed in the Zoning Code.Attachment 3A - CommercialAttachment 3B - Residential

ATTACHMENT 4: For comparison purposes, attachment 4 is a survey of what Ted did looking at Commerce Park in Beachwood which is the same vintage development as Beta Drive, to get a sense of rightly or wrongly what they let go into an Industrial District. In some cases it’s non-industrial uses in industrial buildings. Based on my observation in a lot of cases, it’s non-industrial uses in non-industrial buildings because they let some non-industrial uses be in new buildings that were clearly not intended for industrial purposes anymore.

Ted Esborn said when David & I met with John and Diane in early May one of the things we recognized we had to do was think about, even considering the changes we were drafting, to think about future uses that could present themselves to us and how would we apply these to them. That’s what led to this Commerce Park survey.

Mr. Regan is confused about the legalize, asking for an explanation in those terms as we go through the outline. As I understand now, all we’re looking at doing is amending the code to potentially allow certain things within a zone that seems it could be in there but has not been included?

David Hartt said or is already there, but we’re going to bless it with some restrictions.

Mr. Regan asked, we’re not changing the zoning, correct?

David Hartt said correct.

Mr. Regan said maybe we’re re-defining or expanding the definition.

Ms. Calta said the classification is still the same. It’s just that permitted uses in that classification are going to be broadened.

Mr. Regan said we’ve heard over the years from Bill that when we’ve considered special use or conditional use permits, that we’re changing the zoning.

David Hartt said with this, I would say you’re changing the zoning as a deliberate initiation of a change in public policy which is I think different than what Bill was concerned about that when you’re responding to a specific use that comes in, you’re changing the uses on the fly/haphazardly as they come in.

Ms. Calta said haphazardly has always been the frustration. There are no set guidelines, although there’re guidelines to approve those uses, they are all different sort of uses, all over the board. There’s no consistency or pattern. Now we’re trying to upgrade them.

Mr. Syracuse said we’re basically looking at expanding permitted uses to reduce the amount of special use & conditional use permits that would be coming in as a request to us. Doing this based on a change in the community.

David Hartt said right. What we talked about last time and there didn’t seem to be a consensus to go that far was to predetermine, then list all of the conditional and special uses that you would envision, list them in the code, have some standards or criteria for each one of those. Then potentially get rid of the sentence that says “But Planning Commission can approve any other use they deem appropriate”. So we predetermine what these special uses are. We change the latitude Planning Commission has to say you could still approve a similar use “similar use” because you could never list all the uses that are permitted. That’s a narrower responsibility than having the authority to approve anything else that’s not listed. Based on the discussion last time, there didn’t seem to be consensus from this group to go that far, so we didn’t. That although would be my preference.

Chairman Farmer said we’ve been working on this for a decade knowing that we need to do something with Beta. It wasn’t working anymore.

Mr. Syracuse likes the expansion we’re talking about and what’s being proposed.

David Hartt said my goal is to come out of this meeting with; Are these the amendments that you want to consider and are there others that you want to add or subtract? Then we’d go through the refinement mode to make sure our language is correct and make sure what we propose here doesn’t conflict with another section of the code that we have to amend or delete.

Mr. Syracuse asked, besides Beta is there any other area of the Village this would affect?

David Hartt replied if we’re making changes to the Office-Lab District, yes, that’s the Progressive property as well.

Dr. McGrath states, I think there was an enormous amount of work that went into this, a lot of time spent. I was very impressed, congratulations gentlemen. My thought is, if we could predict all the uses that might come up in the next 20 years, we would all be millionaires. The first thing I thought of was the internet cafes’ going on in other communities. Twenty years ago, we would have asked; what’s an internet café?” I think we have to stay limber enough, whatever is required so we don’t have to do this again to this extent, so we don’t close ourselves down so much when a use comes in that’s similar.

Mr. Syracuse said we’d still have the right to grant conditional uses as we have been. Is there anything in these amendments that an internet café would be considered a permitted use?

David Hartt thinks it sounds like internet cafes will be outlawed before this goes into effect.

Ms. Calta agreed. Cuyahoga County’s moving pretty quickly on that.

Mr. Regan thinks an internet café could maybe slide in at the Hotel/Conference Center.

David Hartt notes that John could say it’s not a listed/permitted use.

Chairman Farmer asked about bars.

Mr. Fikaris asked, if the subject comes up, what’s the difference between a restaurant & a bar?

David Hartt said we can define restaurant / bar based on floor area if that’s a concern.

Mr. Regan makes a comment on some of the actions we’ve taken over the last 10 – 15 yrs. I’m not saying it was exclusive in the rationale. I remember multiple discussions and trips up and down Beta and seeing all the sign boards; ‘vacant’ ‘available’ ‘for-lease’. One of the goals of this Commission was to eliminate as many of those boards as possible. If we stretch the imagination and somebody wants to stick to the letter of the code at the cost to the Village and the property owners who are looking to get value out of their property, so be it.

David Hartt said this is related to that too. This is trying to be sensitive to that while still guarding the public interest.

Mr. Fikaris asked if the Zoning Commission has the authority to specify language about businesses that are not permitted just by the nature of their business, i.e. internet cafes, payday lending, cash for gold.

David Hartt answers yes. The problem with having two lists; permitted & prohibited, if the use you’re talking about doesn’t fall on either list, then where does it fall? If you have just a permitted use list, the conventional approach to zoning is, zoning is listing what you’re entitled to do. If you’re not entitled to do it, then it’s prohibited. That’s the conventional wisdom. Despite my preaching, many written codes people have wanted to put in the most harmful uses as a prohibited use anyway, i.e. landfills, jails, prisons. When you do that that’s not too bad because that doesn’t blend with the permitted uses, but when you get into check cashing places, that gets a little gray.

H. Retailsales of products that are made or assembled on the premise for uses that are otherwise permitted in the P-D District and subject to the limitations in 1173.09. (Ted notes this is the type of retail represented by Sign-A-Rama)

David thinks we should add retail sales that is related to a use that is permitted but is not the product that is being made. (That gets back to the Tree Service Co.)

Garry asked if Best Buy Pools were to buy a palette of chemicals and repackage it into smaller, could they sell it?

David said that would be a related retail use that would still be subject to special use consideration. I think the term ‘related to’ and not ‘the sale of the products made on site’ should be subject to P & Z review.

Garry said Sign-A-Rama also sells For-Sale by Owner signs that they buy from some Japanese or Chinese Co. They’re signs that relate to what they do. As far as I’m concerned, as long as they stay within the space requirements of the retail and they want to sell some pre-packaged pre-produced manufactured signs or clips that go with their signs; sell them.

David said that judgment of whether it’s ‘related to’ or not should go to Planning Commission. I don’t think you should put John in that place.

Garry said we’re not going to go out to check, but if you’re going to do retail in this space and it’s ‘related to’ your primary business, personally I’m o.k. with that. If you’re going to buy one of their signs and you need clips to hang it up, better to buy it from them.

David agrees.

Diane uses the term ‘incidental’.

Ted attempts to think of a circumstance where what is being sold would be so different from their business.

Garry has one, the typical retail pool store that in the winter sells X-Mas tree lights or wood.

David said good example. The pool place is a legitimate use in the P-D District. In the slow season they want to import outdoor stoves and/or fireplace equipment to sell because they have the retail space. I think you can argue that is totally ‘unrelated’.

Paul said the pool store is a good example. I have patio furniture. It has nothing to do with a pool but it’s certainly related. Somebody could argue the experience and go from there. With a patio, you got a grill. With a grill you got grill accessories. The sign store sells the clips, now he needs to sell the hammer & screwdriver.

Garry would argue against it, but if he thinks he can slide in by putting patio furniture in there, he’s just eliminated a lot of other things. Doesn’t mean he can’t have a catalogue back there to ship that patio furniture to the customer’s house.

Paul said yes, the limiting factor is the square footage.

David thinks this is the appropriate door to open, but once you open this door. The sign guy selling incidental stuff that he doesn’t make on the site…… I’m sorry, you can go nuts.

Garry said you could have somebody come in with a t-shirt & hat printing company. Next thing they have pens & gift items for sale.

Vetus asked Garry if he’s suggesting that we reconsider this and take out this part as a permitted use and have it still come through as a conditional use request?

Garry said no, I want it in there. Language needs to say “you can only sell what’s related to your primary business”.

David said I think what we’re trying to say is if you’re selling a product that you make or assemble on the premise, it’s permitted (within the 10% floor area restriction). If you want to sell a product that’s ‘related to’ what you do, the judgment of whether it’s sufficiently ‘related to’ would still come through you as a special use permit request.

Diane asked where Sherwin Williams fits in if they weren’t grandfathered in.

David said probably SOL.

Garry for the sake of retail sales likes the term Diane used; ‘incidental’ to your business.

Diane said ‘accessories’ is probably a better word.

David using Sherwin Williams example; Sherwin Williams even though they don’t make anything there, they’re really a distribution center for wholesalers. I have to believe 70% or 80% of their sales are for contractors and probably only 20% or 30% for the average customer that comes in. You can’t say that for the T-Shirt place.

Garry differs. The T-Shirt place sells to Teams.

David said we’re missing that 2nd type of retail here. We have to get that in. One being permitted and one being special use.

Sue asked for clarification. It’s already in the code that I cannot buy t-shirts from Garry who lives in AZ, store them in a warehouse on Beta and distribute them wholesale. I have to make/create t-shirts on Beta. David said right. Sue comments that a lot of future retail is likely to be over the internet.

Pg 6 – David said this is the new section that we’re putting in the restrictions.

1173.09 SUPPLEMENTAL DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS & CRITERIA

(a) Restaurants are permitted as a main use in the O-L and P-D Districts in compliance with the following:

Have a maximum floor area of 4,000 square feet. (David notes this eliminates the Dave & Busters).

Are located within a building so the restaurant does not comprise more than twenty-five (25%) percent of the first floor area.

David said it’s not necessarily an existing building, but it’s not a restaurant only building. It’s not stand alone.

Chairman asked why we wouldn’t want a stand alone restaurant.

David’s thinking a new free standing restaurant is going to be low, poor, under utilization of the land. This is subject to discussion.

Sue said the Library could put a Starbucks inside. You can’t have a Starbucks all by itself. A drive-thru is a separate prohibited thing.

Vetus said I work in an office building in Euclid. We have a restaurant on our 1st floor. Every yr it’s a different restaurant. It’s been like that for 30 yrs. I don’t think anyone’s going to come in and open a restaurant in the Mt. Vernon bldg. If they do, they’re going to get out as soon as they can because they’re going to lose money. Those places don’t do well because you’re only catering to the people within that building. Most of those people will either bring their lunch or go somewhere else.

David brings up Moxie’s in Beachwood that’s in an industrial building. How about Giovanni’s that’s been there for years?

Ted said stand alone was something we hand in mind for Phase III, changing the standards where we’d increase lot coverage, reduce setbacks. The thought was then perhaps with more lot coverage, property owners would be able to put up free standing in front of their current buildings.

Vetus is not opposed to having free standing restaurants on Beta. What would be the rationale not to?

David said let’s take 600 Beta on the corner. It’s been vacant for quite a while. Suppose they took down the back ½ of that building and put a free standing restaurant right on 271, say 4,000 or 5,000 sq. ft. Would that be o.k.?

Vetus asked if that’s something we should consider today.

Chairman said if we start having free standing restaurants visible from the freeway, people will be opposed to that.Sue said that’s much more like Mayfield Rd. Whether that’s good or bad is beside the point. Does that make the Village money or cost the Village in terms of Police & Fire services. Traffic would become an issue.

Garry said if I’m the landlord of Mt. Vernon, if I’m looking to fill the place up again, if I can push a coffee shop, that maybe helps me get people back in. I’ve been there for years. I’ve seen it empty when I first got there. I’ve seen both buildings fill up completely, and now they’re almost empty again. A couple big companies have moved.

David said if a restaurant is going to go there, Mt. Vernon would love to put a free standing restaurant on the north-east corner of the parking lot. They’d like to put it into the residential zone for more exposure.

Garry said you can’t have a free standing building but you can attach something onto the building?

Diane doesn’t think you want to do stand alone, but the 25% could encompass “attaching to”. (Consensus is everybody likes this)

(b)Fitness, Physical Improvement, Physical Therapy facilities are permitted as a main use in the P-D Districts in compliance with the following:

Maximum floor area of 4,000 sq ft (same as restaurants).

Are located within a building not to comprise more than 25% of the first floor area (same as restaurants).

Garry brings up the monstrous Lifetime Fitness facility. In looking at our vacant buildings, what if one of the Beta owners wants to put in a super gym?

David replied that none of these uses are going to get all of their market from the employees that are on Beta Dr. The rationale is we’re providing a service to some extent for those people. Keeping it small is more related to that objective than making it a large destination place. It could be a huge capital investment, but it doesn’t have a lot of employees.

Vetus thinks expanding this accomplishes a goal that the Planning Dept is setting out to accomplish. I agree this is probably a good first step. If eventually it’s not working out and we still have many vacancies, we can always re-address rezoning down the road.

(c) Retail Sales of products that are made or assembled on the premise for uses that are otherwise permitted in the P-D District subject to the following:

The Building Commissioner has determined and reports to the P & Z Commission that without the retail component, the use is permitted in the district pursuant to Section 1173.

The amount of space that is used for retail can be no greater than 10% of the total occupied space OR four hundred (400) sq. ft, whichever area is less.

There will be no changes to the exterior of the building, with the exception of sign that may be approved by Architectural Review Board.

Applicant has submitted to the Building Commissioner a floor plan of the space depicting the layout and arrangement of uses including area for retail sales and display (this can be done after P & Z has been given approval but before occupancy permit has been issued).

David said this attachment is not really changing the substance of this.

Diane said when an applicant comes in, they are given this Guidelines list, they fill out their application and answer the Guidelines questions.

Vetus wonders if ‘Conditional Permit’ should be added to Special Permit Uses.

Ted notes that Chapter 1149 does state Temporary, Conditional & Special Use Permit. This section governs Conditional Use Permit granting.

Diane said the majority of the permits fall under Special Use.

David said there are few substantive changes:

5. If intended to be a transitional or buffering use between two or more zoning uses and, as such, it shall serve to improve land use compatibility as well or better than if development were confined to uses that are permitted by right; and further implement the 2020 Master Plan.

6. Has demonstrated is economically feasible based on documentation submitted by the applicant that there is sufficient market demand within the Village and/or surrounding areas to support the use.

8. retail because, at least to some degree, the proposed use is not currently available in the Village or that the community is underserved by the type/use being proposed;

David said I was a little concerned about number 8. I crossed 8 out completely, then decided to leave it in, because I’m not sure whether it’s fair to limit the judgment to these kinds of benefits; medical, educational, tech or retail.

Garry asked about financial/economical.

Vetus suggested just saying; Will provide benefits to the community and leave it open for us to decide what the benefits are.

Diane notes that number 10 addresses the economic impact.

Sue said it’s a judgment call. Jim may think a strip club is a benefit, I may not. I’m in favor of leaving out the list and letting the applicant explain what their benefits are.

David changes the language to read; Will provide benefits to the community consideringsuchfactorsbutnotlimitedto medical, educational……etc. Lengthy discussion ensued on language options.

Sue said there’s no objective cut for any one of these items. This is just a guideline for the applicant to explore with us why we should or should not let them come into this community. Vetus agreed, it’s one of 10 guidelines.

ATTACHMENT 3 (Pg #10)A List of All Uses that are Permitted “Main Uses” listed “Special Uses” or Special Uses that have been approved but are not explicitly listed in the Zoning Code.

Ted Esborn said Chapter 1149 governs Conditional Use. Referring to chart on Pg 10, 11 & 12, Ted gives an explanation as to why there are so many S’s listed.

In Section 1149.02 (c)(3) P & Z Commission can grant special use permits to locate in a Class U-5 use in a Local Business District and permit the location of a Class U-6 use in any use District.

The last section says that any other use that this body thinks is in keeping with the uses in U-5, you can permit those specially in the Local Business District which is why so many things on this chart say that they’re allowed specially in Local Business. It gets even broader with U-6 because this is the class of uses that has a lot more public uses, i,e, Church, Cemetery, Crematory, Library. The same provision here if this body thinks that it’s keeping with these other uses then any use can be given a special permit, and for this, that can be done in any district. That’s why under ‘Use’ in both the Commercial & Residential chart, the first item I’ve listed as “Any Use” and it’s all specially permitted. This is an indication how broad the authority is to grant any use.

David Hartt said ironically you have the authority to change your use and the Board of Appeals doesn’t. Normally it’s the opposite.

Dr. McGrath wonders if Social Services (Koinonia Homes training facility) and Day Care should be added to the list. When you think about what would be helpful to people in offices, I think Day Care would be appealing.

Ms. Calta asked about Veterinary Hospitals.

Ted Esborn replied Veterinary Hospitals are on the prohibited list in the code. If this is an opportunity to cross things off, should we go into this section of the code and remove Veterinary Hospital, considering we’ve had a very prominent successful Veterinary Hospital on Wilson Mills since 1935.

David Hartt states this gets back to the earlier question; Should we have a Prohibited Use list?

Ted Esborn thinks it’s a case that other items on the Prohibited List are quite old, i.e. Sewage Disposal Plant.

David Hartt asked, do you want us to more broadly look at this and while we’re at it, think through the whole Use List?

Ms. Calta thinks if we’re cleaning the rest of it up, it makes sense to clean any inconsistencies up in this list. For example Cemetery is repetitive in two different places.

David Hartt asked the Commission if they prefer a tables format. Consensus is tables are preferable.

Ted Esborn notes that it’ll be a lot easier to navigate once we take out the things that are cluttering it.

David Hartt said the whole notion of Class U-1, U-2 & U-3 Uses, which is not in sync with the Zoning District disappears, and we allow these uses strictly with the Zoning District.

Ms. Calta said I remember the first time when it didn’t make sense to me. We have a zone, you should have the uses that are in the zone. Instead, we have the zones and then we have the Use Classifications.

David Hartt said this was done in a ton of codes in Northeast Ohio in the 50’s & 60’s. To this day I can’t figure out why it was done that way. We’ll continue working on these amendments.